Malaysian Out; 3 Ghanaians to run Telecom

The government has appointed a three-member Management Committee (IMC) to manage the affairs of Ghana Telecommunications (GT) Company Limited - Mr Dickson Oduro-Nyaning, the Chief Network Officer of GT, is chairman of the IMC, Mr Kwaku Awuah-Boateng, the Chief Finance Officer, and Mr Kofi Dua-Adonteng, the Head of the Legal Department, both of the Company.
The Minister of Communications and Technology, Mr Felix Owusu-Adjapong, said in an interview that this arrangement has been made following the expiration of the contract of the Malaysian managing director on19 April, this year. He dismissed claims in certain quarters that the managing director was sacked by the government and explained that the Malaysian was granted a two-year contract on 19 April 2000 and it expired this year.
He added that since Telekom Malaysia, which owns 30-per cent shares in GT, decided to off-load its shares, the government did not find it prudent to appoint someone from the management team of Telekom Malaysia to manage the affairs of the company.
Mr Owusu-Adjapong said the government, therefore, decided to constitute the three most senior officials of the company into an IMC. The government has accepted the decision of Telekom Malaysia to sell its shares and the two have agreed to nominate one person each to work out the market value of the shares in order to determine how much would be paid for the 30 per cent shares.
Shedding more light on the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Ghana and Telenor Management Partners AS (TMP) of Norway, the Minister said there is nowhere the purchase of equity shares features in the negotiations. He said under the MOU, Telenor is required to make available financial resources sufficient to expand the fixed network of GT by a minimum of 400,000 lines within two to three years and bring its management know-how to secure the development of GT.
The Minister explained that Telenor was also tasked to develop a business plan outlining how they will achieve these goals and said the MOU only said the government may consider selling shares to Telenor, adding that “so far as I am concerned, the purchase of equity shares is not on the table now”.
Mr Owusu-Adjapong said if the business plan is accepted, Telenor will be able to bring money sufficient enough to provide 400,000 lines within the period. The Ministry of Communications and Technology issued a statement on the MOU with Telenor is expected among other things, to address issues such as provision of management expertise and technical services to facilitate the positioning of Ghana Telecom in the global market.
The rest are improvement of quality of service on existing and proposed telephone infrastructure, to broadband so as to facilitate the introduction of multi-media applications, including internet and e-commerce.